Browsing by Author "Mazzamurro, Matteo"

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Assessing the impact of major historical events on urban landscapes via local entropy measures
    (IEEE, 2021-10-15) Mazzamurro, Matteo; Guo, Weisi
    In this paper we show how Shannon entropy, an intuitive and versatile measure of uniformity of a probability distribution, can be adapted to quantify the heterogeneity of land use and population density in and around human settlements. Using a raster data set of estimates of historical population density and land use, we show that local entropy measures capture salient aspects of the evolution of urban systems. Through the case studies of the UK, India, and Italy we reconnect the temporal evolution of the measures to some of the main socioeconomic and political changes and epidemic events these countries went through during the last three centuries. We argue that the diffusion of technological innovations is more apparently correlated to changes in the measures than epidemic events in themselves. We discuss the potential significance and limitations of this finding in understanding changes in urban systems in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ItemOpen Access
    Network-entropy-based morphological polycentricity in 1851-1881 England and Wales
    (SAGE, 2024-11) Mazzamurro, Matteo; Guo, Weisi
    A system of cities is morphologically polycentric when its cities are similarly sized and evenly spaced across its territory. In this paper, we adapt established spatial interaction models and entropy-based measures of heterogeneity of weighted networks to the problem of measuring morphological polycentricity. We study the evolution of the morphological polycentricity of the system of English and Welsh towns from 1851 to 1881, a period characterised by rapid urbanisation and expansion of railways. Our approach enables us to account for morphological aspects of the system that are often neglected by existing measures of morphological polycentricity, such as the evolution of transport infrastructure and its impact on travel distances. We show that the trend towards a greater concentration of the population in fewer urban centres in England and Wales was accompanied by a more diverse network of connections and potential intercity interactions.